abraXXious

Again, not bad.... but certainly not on the same level as the SID examples I posted - they sound very samey and shallow, no distinct instruments. In fairness, Nemesis The Warlock was never one of Hubbards greats. Didn't the Atari 8 bits get a conversion of Warhawk? It had a good Hubbard soundtrack, it would be interesting to compare the Pokey and SID on the same tune (if Hubbard did the Atari version.... if an Atari version exists).

Well that's great that the GTIA can produce an extra two sound channels - with that in mind it should be easy to direct me to a few Pokey tunes that sound as good as the SID ones I posted. I wait with bated breath.

We are getting warmer! That's not bad.... but still not great. Can you suggest any others that sound a little less "bloopy"? Did Time Follin ever do any Pokey music? He was usually able to get some good instrument sounds out of the hardware he was using.

Thank you! Checking them out now. Will post back shortly.

Starts slow, but after 1:55 and especially 3:20 shows the gap between SID and any other sound chip of its era. If you listen, more and more voices are added as the piece progresses (using the volume bug). Short piece that shows the SIDs waveform abilities to add variable reverb and decay to give a very full oriental sound. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV3H7TGofJQ Good version of the Turrican III music - C64 got an unofficial port of the Megadrive/Amiga game a few years back. Some good filter effects (love the "ethereal" sounds at 1:16 onwards) Not a great tune (the C64 got two conversions of Afterburner and I prefer the music from the UK version), however this shows the forth sample voice of the SID. The SID had 4 usable voices, not 3. The 4th was for samples.

SID does sort of have 4 voices as the volume registers are used to play sampled sounds in addition to the 3 voices using the bug in the SID - usually used for the percussion. Im sorry, but as a user of both systems the Pokey, as capable as it may have been for its time, cannot compare to the SID at all. The SID, using its extensive envelope, delay etc and different filters and available waveforms, can produce complex and rich sounds such as pipe organs, banjos, harmonicas etc. Pokey can produce beeps and bloops - great for Pacman and Space Invader conversions, not so great for music. Having a soft spot for the 8 bit Atari's (big Jay Miner fan) I would LOVE to hear some amazing Pokey tunes that hold up to the SID - please direct me to ONE. Lets use just the two games I linked to. If you can point me to a single Pokey tune that sounds as good as these then I will happily concede the pokey is the SIDs equal.

That really does sounds like an early SID tune. I could imagine it running in the background of some early 80s Monty Mole type platformer.

Well this sounds much better, however there still seems to be a large gap between the capabilities of the SID and Pokey. I think the Pokey is more in its element, so to speak, playing simpler electronic sounds, like early arcade machines (which makes sense). I would like to hear things like the Lemmings soundtrack from it as I believe it could do these sort of simplistic, upbeat tunes well.

?! That sounds terrible! Scratchy, indistinct "instruments", just..... a mess. Surely this is not considered the best Pokey can do? Compare this to just the Ghouls and Ghosts soundtrack on the SID - HUUUUUUUUUGE difference, and thats just a typical SID tune - no extra CPU processing etc requires, it simply runs in the background of the game. There were two main revision of the SID, which are pretty much the same chip except for the later being designed to run on 9 volts instead of 12 and fixing a "bug" in the volume cut out of the SID.... which had the side effect of dramatically reducing the volume for sampled effects as this bug was used to oscillate the volume registers and play samples.

Hmmmm, I thought the XL range was released in 82. In any event, makes no difference as the sound hardware (and the majority of the rest) was identical. I shall edit my previous statement on your correction - in 1982 the C64s competition from Atari was the original Atari 800 and Atari 400 - both of which still used the Pokey chip.

Oh, and the amazing Ghouls and Ghosts sound track only requires ONE SID chip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEjKPvk4rnw Title music is atmospheric with some nice metal hammer sounds, but I have always had a soft spot for the Level 1,3 and 4 themes. Level 1 - 3:58 Level 2 - 6:50 Level 3 - 9:20 Level 4 - 11:40 Level 5 - 13:35 After listening to that can you say the Pokey has "clearer" sound with a straight face?

What are you talking about? My statement that the SID was more capable than other sound chips of the time, including the Pokey is 100% correct. When the C64 was released in late 81 (but pretty much 82 worldwide) the available CURRENT system from Atari was the XL range - which used the Pokey. The fact that they had developed and first used the chip years earlier is immaterial - in 1982 it was the competition to the C64. Of course, it would be EXPECTED that hardware three years newer SHOULD be more powerful. If you were to say that the Pokey was a bigger accomplishment than the SID due to being released years earlier, then you might have a point, but this still does not negate the fact that the SID is more powerful, again, as you would expect due to the later date of development. If I were to (correctly) state that the Amiga had a better sound chip that most PCs at the time of it's release, would that be incorrect on the basis that the SID was 4 years old at that time? No, of course not. The C64 was STILL an available, produced and supported platform at the time of the Amiga's introduction (and many years after). Do Atari loverboys often twist the facts to fashion excuses for the shortcomings of their preferred platform?

My Flash cart arrived today and I just had to post a thank you to Saint for developing such a wonderful product. Works impeccably with all ROMs I have thrown at it and the quality and workmanship of the cart itself is second to none - very professional. Even the menu system is a simple elegant solution down to the preview screenshots of all ROMs - very nice touch. Thanks again Saint, was well worth the wait and I look forward to your upcoming Neo Geo Pocket and Atari Jaguar products. Cheers buddy.

Hey, just read your 'reception' over at the Neo Geo forums - and I can truly say a single sentence describes it perfectly - what a pack of arseholes. That place has one of the worst reputations as a forum, but I never expected anything as blunt, harsh and ridiculous as I saw there. I urge everyone to check out that thread for a real eye opener....

You know, if for some reason the ole' CC goes on strike.... I would be happy to help you out by picking up your position in the queue.

Please add me to the list - one unit cased to suit Lynx II.

Yes, but thats a personal taste thing - I think the Flimbo's Quest music sounds great and is VERY catchy.... the game however is rubbish - though many disagree with me here too.

Lol, not quite, but it is a very good try.

Most SID music has 4 voices - the forth voice is digitised effects created by activating the volume register - it is actually a bug in the original chip which gives the unexpected benefit of a four voice and digitised sound playback for very little CPU usage. You may be right about my being USED to the SID, but the SID is hardly 'tinny' - depending on the sound it can sound very bassy.... tinny..... or neither. The whole thing with the SID is that unlike other sound chips of the time, including the Pokey, it was not designed as a mere computer sound output device, it was designed as a mini synthesizer on a chip with many of the sound wave manipulation abilities of such. I have played with the SID player for the Pokey and its amazing - but it does not emulate the SID. A more accurate description would be it PLAYS an approximation of the SID to the best of its more limited capabilities. Still, and AMAZING achievement - very clever programmer. For a more bassy C64 tune try this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GlCcO4zghM . After the loading theme, go to the 2 minute mark for the Title screen music.

Wow, thats amazing - it is not as good as the SID original, but it is close - the instruments don't have the same fidelity (of course the SID has sound manipulation capabilities that the Pokey is missing so that is to be expected) and it missing some voices and effects, but overall it still sounds great. This is the sort of thing I was chasing.

I started this thread quite a while ago and just thought of it again when recently asked if I had come across any good ready=to-go UltraSatan SD card images..... ....I had not. Did anyone ever get any closer to creating a good ready made image with games and demos for a 1GB+ SD card?

Wow....... only just came across this thread today as I was looking for options for converting PC floppies to HD Atari Mega ST/STe floppies..... .....this guy is a serious arsehole - how proud his parent must be.

I have more than 40 Amigas all refurbed and restored and most upgraded as far as they can go....with the exception of PPC cards which I find too expensive to be worth the small software support they have - I leave PPC apps to the next gen Amigas such as my beautiful X1000 etc. Of all the Amigas I find the most worthless to be the A500 followed by the CDTV. My reasoning is as follows: The A1000 has a lovely design, was the very first Amiga and so has a collectable appeal and as they are not too common are worth something. There are several amazing upgrades for it which are internal (I cannot STAND external bolt on hardware ramshackles!). The A2000 was the first really expandible Amiga. Built like a tank, can internally take an 060+128Mb Fast ram, 2mb Agnus Chip upgrade, 24 bit Graphics Card, 16 bit Sound Card, USB Card, internal DVDRom etc etc. Very reliable (stick to revision 6.x mbs though). The A3000 has a really nice case design, high build quality, 2mb Chip ready, 030 as standard, build in scan doubler, Zorro 3 slots, can take all of the same type of expansions (except internal DVDRom) as the A2000 AND, if you have deep pockets, even a PPC card with which you can run the latest Amiga OS 4. The A4000 has Zorro 3 slots, native AGA, 2mb Chip standard, 030 or 040 as standard, can take all of the same type of expansions as the A2000/3000, ppc card and again can run Amiga OS 4. The A1200 has a nice design, 020 as standard, 2mb chip as standard, internal IDE for HDs, PcmCia slot (VERY handy these days especially for file transfer between miggy and pc), KS 3.x as standard. Very expandible, has access to PPC cards etc and even (rare and expensive) internal BVision 24bit graphics cards. Has mediator kits and tower kits available. Can be expanded considerably and run latest Amiga OS 4. The A600, whilst once considered the worst Amiga, is now quite an attractive prospect (at least in comparison to the craptacular A500). It is the most compact and "cute" Amiga. It has KS 2.x as standard, PcmCia slot, 2mb Agnus, internal IDE for HDs, and can be expanded INTERNALLY with an 030, 64mb fast ram, KS 3.1, 2mb chip ram, Dual clock ports, Subway USB, Indivision ECS etc etc. Quite a powerful miggy can be housed in such a small attractive case. Even the CD32 has SOME merit. It is 2mb Chip standard with AGA, CDrom, KS 3.x and can be expanded into full Amiga with similar specs to an A1200. Now the CDTV, except for a nice case and matching peripherals in black (I have a mint set up including monitor, floppy drive, keyboard, mouse, trackball etc), it only has a single speed cdrom using caddies (annoying) and is almost impossible to upgrade. It only shipped with KS 1.3 even though KS 2.x had been out for a while in the A3000. Only has OCS chip set, no 2mb Agnus, only 1mb ram, no ide connector etc etc. Still, nice case and can be expanded with more ram, KS 3.1 etc with a little work. Lastly you have the A500. The most crappiest Amiga to own in the 21sst century. Back in the day the A500 was the most important Amiga model as it was the model which made the Amiga affordable to the masses and so helped make the brand popular. it was also the gamers model. However, the years have not been kind. The A500 is large and a desk filler. Has no IDE, only KS 1.x (unless you find an A500+ which have their own problems), only 512kb or 1mb ram as standard, only ECS, No cdrom (not counting the A570 bolt on as it is only single speed, uses caddies and as an external add on only ADDS to the desk filling monstrosity), no PcmCia, upgrades are thin on the ground etc etc. I can think of absolutely no reason why anyone would want to own an A500, except the nostalgia connected with it being their first Amiga. They are ugly, low specced, difficult/expensive to upgrade and offer far less hardware than ALL of the other Amiga models. I guess the only nice thing I can say about the A500 is that as the most common (and least valued) Amiga it is dirt cheap - much cheaper than any other Amiga model - but you get what you pay for. That being said I own two Amiga 500s (well actually one A500 and one A500+) simply for the sake of a complete collection. Both of which are mint and boxed and never get used as there is simply no point these days. Even the lowly A600 in stock format runs circles around them.

Time to bump this old thread!!! Has anyone ever found or created a decent SD Image full of games? I recently purchased a MiST and found to my surprise that an SD Card Image renamed to Harddrive.HD is autobooted from MiST with all partitions etc accessible from the desktop. So now there is at least the Satandisk, UltraSatan and MiST users that could do with a complete games SD image.

To bump an old thread... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42-TPA5vWMI - this is supposed to be a demo of a Super Mario clone on the Atari 7800.... however it HAS to be fake. It looks like it has 60+ colours on screen at times and whilst it appears SOME of the backdrops are low res, others are definitely in high res amd the sprites all appear to be in high res mode.... is that possible on the 7800? I am thinking it is a hack of Snes Lost Levels edited and then recorded in a very low frame rate to make it look jerky and unoptimised - supposedly running on a 7800. If it IS legit, then the 7800 can graphically